DEDICATION 



m\\m^im\ |^ount^ |olHim'||mui:ijnt, 



AT MARIETTA, 0., SBPTBMBBI mr 



ADDRESS BY : / 

GEN. T. 0. H. SMITH. 



ii^iUU 



ADDEESS 



DEDICATION 



^||a.^I\in|(t0n l^oiintg ^0l(IiM*^' |[aitumtnt, 



AT MARIETTA, O., SEPTEMBEE 17, 1875. 



BY(^-''^>f' 




GEN. T. C. H. SMITH. 




CINCINNATI: 

ROBERT CLARKE & CO., PRINTERS, 

1875. 



ADDRESS. 



We meet to-day. the people of the oldest county in the 
Northwest — the county which once included, in its borders 
all of the Northwest then under civil jurisdiction — to dedi- 
cate a monument in memory of those of our citizens who 
fell as soldiers in a great struggle, which — devolved upon us 
by dissensions growing out of the colonial diflerences of 
the Atlantic States — the people of the Northwest, by their 
comparative unity, enthusiasm, and devotion — aided by 
their controlling geographical position — were enabled, in 
the providence of God, mainly to decide. 

We are assembled in the oldest city of distinctive Amer- 
ican origin on the continent, where first — after our political 
independence of Europe had been achieved — the waves of 
emigration from the various colonial States, passing the 
mountain barrier commingled in a common tide, and 
blending difterent traits and varied descents, began, in the 
great valley of the continent, the formation of a distinct- 
ively American nationality. 

We are also upon the very scene where the scheme was 
forecast, and among us in numbers and part of us, are 
the immediate or near descendants of the very men, who 
planned, and by wise concert with others, engrafted such 
institutions upon the Northwest — notably township organ- 
ization and the common schools — as, when the crisis came, 
induced, in the people of our section, an intelligent, con- 
sistent, and unyielding adherence to the cause of liberty 
and the Union. 

Assembled with us are distinguished officers, not of our 
community, but who have commanded Washington county 
troops, and are thus united with us in sentiment for our 
dead.* They have come great distances to testify by their 

* General Pope, U. S. A., General Manning F. Force, and others were 
present. 



4 . ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

presence their sympathy with us on this occasion. We 
thank them and we welcome them. No form of w^ords or 
legal ceremony is necessary to confer on them an honorary 
co-citizenship with the people of this county. That bond 
was welded in the heat of war by military adoption, and 
since then we claim a part in them, and gladly yield them 
part in us. 

To-day, for the first time, we come together as a county 
community to perform a duty concerning our soldiers. 
All previous offices, those connected with the raising of 
troops and their subsequent care, were so spontaneously 
and universall}' rendered by individuals, by families, by 
societies, by neighborhoods, b}- the vigorous home force of 
the townships, that although our county authorities were 
frequently called upon and always active, there came no 
necessity for an assembly of the people of the county in 
their collective capacity. It is well that this first meeting 
of the kind comes since the peace, for thus those who 
represented the county in the field are joined to those who, 
at home, stood by them and the cause ; including always 
that sex which made the fame of American women honor- 
able by their enduring passive courage, and by their busy, 
thoughtful, and unflagging care for the health of the sol- 
diers, and for their families. If some whom we strongly 
wish were here have since been taken from us, yet it is a 
satisfaction to us as a public that the generation which has 
in the interval been maturing, and on which we depend 
for the transmission of the principles for which we con- 
tended, thus comes to be largely represented, and can, in 
this instance, be witnesses and active participants of the 
spirit that animated and sustained the contest. That spirit 
is alive to-day. Let us rejoice then, sad as are the mem- 
ories that mingle with the time, that old "Washington for 
once shows herself in force on an occasion wholly related 
to the war, and be glad that she thus warmly and unitedly 
remembers those who laid down their lives for the cause 
with which, by her origin, her history, and by all the 
higher aspirations of her peo[de, she was so intimately and 
throroughly identified. " It is good for us to be here." 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 5 

And as this is the first such assemblage, so is it, it need 
hardly be added, the last. And this gives it its greatest in- 
terest and most solemn significance. Wiien a man dies, 
the care for him by those who were attached to him, and 
which followed him through life, ends with that closing 
act which places the headstone to tell that though he be 
dead his memory is to be kept alive. And this community, 
in dedicating this monument, completes its course of duty 
performed for those who represented it in arms. The long 
series of mutual relations and sympathetic offices, which, 
from enlistment onward, marked and illustrated the con- 
nection of the soldiers with their fellow-citizens, ends here. 
It began when the reverberations from Sumter sounded 
over the land and told us we must fight; when the cry 
that the Union was in danger stormed all hearts. Then 
came the fearful separation which patriotism unhesitat- 
ingly demanded, when wives gave up husbands, children 
fathers, parents sons, sisters brothers, the betrothed her 
lover, and all — their friends, and along our ridges and down 
our valleys flowed the tide of men who came to take up 
arms. And this was but the beginning. Again and again, 
through the long struggle, the recruiting drum beat its 
summons in your midst, and never in vain. At first, after 
battles deputations went to see that our wounded should 
not want. Soon the perfect working of the Sanitary 
Commission supplied all such needs, and supplies for these 
Commissions became the rule. Loving and patriotic 
hands — for love and patriotism w^ere so blended, that 
even in thought they could not be separated — prepared 
these supplies, and, what was more, sent direct those 
hundreds on hundreds of tokens, and thousands on thou- 
sands of letters, that here, as all over the land, aided so 
much to keep open the way, for a re-absorption of the 
vast military forces into home citizenship and peaceful work 
again. At the polls, whenever the war was put in issue, 
the thunders of your votes cleared and purified the politi- 
cal sky, and strengthened the hearts of soldiers with tiie 
knowledge that they were still in a majority at home. 
Finally came the raising and fitting out of the hundred- 



6 ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

day men — the young reserves that, posted on every com- 
municating line, enabled the veterans to concentrate and 
deliver with confidence their last blows. Soon then all was 
won. The history of what occurred at home, to which we 
thus briefly refer, should be written and preserved. It con- 
stitutes as grateful a recollection for all as that of the deeds 
in the field is a proud one. To-day, in its last link, is com- 
pleted the chain that kept the soldier a citizen, and bound 
the citizen to the soldier. Nothing more can be added ; and 
the record may be said to be made up, by which in our 
common responsibility we are to be judged at the bar of 
history. Upon it we are not afraid to stand. 

Thus much for those considerations which touch the 
larger relations, or again the warm homeside of the 
events which the deaths of those whom we are here to 
remember and honor signalize. When we turn to the 
field record itself, all else passes at once out of sight, and 
intenser, sharper memories take the place. It is no longer 
of the cause, even, but of the men we have lost that we 
have to think. It is of Melvin Clark, falling in the sweep- 
ing assault of his regiment at Antietam. Upon his body, 
worn next to his heart, they find the miniature of his little 
girl. It is of Franklin Buell, in the great artillery contest 
on the Rappahannock. Thrown insensible and crushed — 
soon to die, the first wave of consciousness that returns, 
brings back to him only the thought of duty. He sees 
that the men of his battery have gathered around him, and 
his first words, calmly uttered, are, " Go back to your guns, 
tnen; there are enough others to take care of me." It is of 
Beale Whittlesey, in the grand assault at Mission Ridge, 
In the midst of the struggling steep ascent, he spruigs for- 
ward to incite his command to new eftbrts, and is shot dead 
as he takes the lead. It is of Turner, crowning the height 
in advance of all, and cheering them on, his sword on high, 
as he falls. It is of Condit, in the desperate cavalry com- 
bat on the right at Stone River, fighting to the death. It 
is of these, and such as these, we think. For why name 
instances? Only as instances. The deeds that speak loud- 
est spoke but for all. The most tiery feats — impetuous out- 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 7 

bursts— of bravery, were but brilliant scintillations, brighter 
rays, thrown out from that latent, all-pervading, and power- 
ful heat— that staying quality of valor— which inhered in 
the mass of our army and held it up through battle, sickness, 
privation, and toil, on to the determined end. And, not 
less brave, not less devoted, always more touching, were 
the deaths of those who, stricken by disease, many of them 
before even the opportunity for the glorious seal of wounds 
upon them, in the seclusion and silence of the hospital, 
withdrawn alike from the sustaining excitements of the 
field and the comforting sympathies of home, passed away. 

We furnished, in this county, for the national cause, 
something over four thousand men, including recruitments. 
The majority of the Seventy-seventh, over a third of the 
Thirty-sixth and Kinety-second, and two companies each 
in the Thirty-ninth and Sixty-third Infantry ; one company 
each in the First, Seventh and Ninth Cavalry ; and Hunt- 
ington and DeBeck's Batteries, were from Washington. A 
large number crossed the Ohio, and, joining with loyal 
Virginians, formed the Second Virginia Cavalry and Buell's 
Battery. Squads from our county enlisted in adjoining dis- 
tricts, and we were thus represented in the Fifty-third, 
Seventy-eighth, and One Hundred and Fourteenth regi- 
ments, and in the United States Colored Troops. Of the 
^rational Guards, or hundred-day men, we furnished seven 
companies of the One Hundred and Forty-eighth regi- 
ment. Many citizens of our county, temporarily away in 
other States, enlisted where they happened to be, including 
the distinguished instance of that gallant soldier who, en- 
tering the service but a youth, rose to the command of the 
famous "Iron Brigade"— General Rufus R. Dawes. 

It would, of course, be vain to try to give, in the limits of 
an address, even the barest sketch of what those whose 
fame to-day we commemorate, endured and achieved. 
And, on the other hand, it would, in view of the occasion, 
be an ungrateful omission to pass over their services with- 
out some mention of events. We can refer, then, to the more 
important operations of the war in which they bore a part, 



8 ADDEESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

and recall some instances, striking because of the quality 
of the fighting or the amount of sacrifice required. These, 
by association, may serve to call up in our minds their 
career, and renew its remembrance this daj. 

Our regiments, by which I mean those in which we were 
more especially represented, fi.rst came under fire in the 
spring of 1862 — the Thirt3"-ninth and Sixty-third in March, 
at the siege of ]^ew Madrid; the Seventy-seventh in April, 
at Shiloh ; and the Thirty-sixth in May, at Lewisburg. 

Our successes that spring, which broke the first power of 
the rebe lion and defeated its principal policy, have been so 
shadowed by greater battles and more far-reaching marches 
since, that we hardly consider their relative importance. 

It is well enough to briefly recount them and point out 
their bearing, not only because this is necessary to under- 
stand what Shiloh was, but because — if the judgment 
and plans of the Southern leaders are to count as of value 
in forming an opitiion — the danger of what alone could 
prevent our ultimate triumph was, by those successes, dis- 
posed of — viz. European intervention. 

The Secession forces had, that winter, in violation of 
their professed doctrines, invaded the State of Kentucky, 
and taken up a line which, with its I'ight resting on Mill 
Springs, extended westward through Glasgow and Bowling 
Green, closed the CumberUuid and Tennessee rivers by 
Forts Donelson and Henry, and the Mississippi with the 
fortifications at Island Xo. 10 and Xew Madrid, and occu- 
pied at large Southern and Western Missouri. Their ob- 
ject in assuming this line, as is shown in an official letter 
of General Albert Sidney Johnston, accounting for the 
disasters upon it, was to entirely cover the cotton region, 
and thus distress us, and compel European intervention, by 
a dearth of that staple. 

Pope, in Missouri, b\' an advance on Price's flank and 
rear, captured some fourteen hundred prisoners, and in- 
duced the withdrawal of the rei)el forces to the Arkansas 
line. Thomas, by the battle of Mill S[>riug.-:, disposed 
of their right. Grant, by his success at Henry, and his 
tremendous blow at Donelson, capturing nearly fifteen 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 9 

thousand prisoners and sixty-five guns, sent all of the rebel 
forces that he did not capture out of Kentucky and Middle 
Tennessee. The capture of Island No. 10, of which the 
seige of New Madrid had been the preliminary operation, 
followed. Here were captured nearly seven thousand pris- 
oners and one hundred and twenty-three guns. Pope ef- 
fected this with such care and skill that the casualties on 
our side were but a handful, and not a man was killed in 
the Thirty-ninth or Sixty-third, though they were much in 
the trenches and under fire. To complete the disastrous 
results of the attempt to control cotton, on the same day on 
which the garrison of Island jSTo. 10 surrendered, the battle 
of Shiloh was decided in our favor. 

By far the most decisive of these successes was that at 
Donelson ; but all aided, and the general result was, that 
enough of the cotton region was gained to reasonably sup- 
ply the world, with what was on hand, for another year. 
By that time England had become sufliciently interested in 
cotton culture in India to so far separate her in purpose 
from France, and our formal adoption of the emancipation 
policy had raised such an issue, and developed such an opin- 
ion in our favor abroad, as strengthened indefinitely there 
the sentiment of neutrality. 

It is only in the light of these disasters, most of which 
preceded it, that the full significance of the battle of Shiloh 
can be estimated. Two things the Southern leaders had 
mainly relied upon — -two principal articles of faith were 
held by those who attempted to form the planters' confed- 
eration. One was that cotton was king, and foreign powers 
would allow us but a limited time to stop supplies of that 
article in an attempt to subjugate the region which supplied 
it to the world. The other was that the people of the 
North, if they fought at all, would not, from the circum- 
stance that they were so wholly an industrial people, have 
sufiicient military skill and prowess to cope with the South 
in arms. But not only had the cotton region been opened 
and large supplies obtained, but at Mill Springs, in the 
open field, and at Donelson, in a fortification, they had been 
defeated by inferior forces. Thus the general feeling of the 



10 ADDEESS OF GENEKAL SMITH. 

rebels in the Southwest was, that if they did not at once 
restore their military prestige they were gone, and Shiloh 
became, as Sherman well phrased it, a tight for manhood. 
It was fought by the South with desperation, and as a battle 
that was to decide all. 

At Shiloh, the Seventy-seventh was posted at the Church, 
from which the field received its name, the key-point of 
Sherman's position and in front of his headquarters. It was 
there, indeed, that during the light Sherman received his 
wound. The brigade included also the Fifty-third and 
Fifty-seventh. It was the most advanced of the division 
and the first to receive the shock of the enemy. It was 
commanded by Colonel Hildebrand of the Seventy-seventh, 
and of our county, of whom Sherman said in his ofiicial 
report that a braver man he never saw. Two companies 
of the regiment, constituting the picket for the brigade, 
under Captain McCormick, were attacked at daylight, and 
after having been reinforced, were, before sunrise, driven 
in. Immediately the line of battle of the enemy, Har- 
dee's Corps, came rushing on at a double-quick, and the 
regiments of the brigade had hardly more than formed 
before they were attacked at their camps. The Fifty-third, 
on the left, which by Sherman's designation should have 
been in line with the others, stood at a considerable angle, 
its left fully in air, and tlirust squarely into the enemy's 
line. It was at once hopelessly rolled up. Tiie Fifty-sev- 
enth and Seventy-seventh, more fortunate, rallied quickly 
from a first disorder, clung to the ridge, and, with the aid 
of Taylor's Chicago battery on the right of the brigade, 
held the enemy in check — the Seventy-seventh under the 
command of that able soldier, Major (since General) 
Fearing, of our county. The Fifty-third soon rallied on 
their left. Gradually the enemy flanked the troops on the 
left of the brigade, and after a while they gave way, 
Waterhouse's battery there losing three guns. ISText the 
Fifty-third and Fifty-seventh were flanked and over- 
powered. The Seventy-seventh still held on, maintaining 
its possession of the ridge at that point till about 10 
o'clock, when, under orders from Sherman, it retired slowly. 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 11 

still fighting, to the new line in the rear, which, meantime, 
he had assumed for his division. "When this order was re- 
ceived, Fearing had just sent word that they could still 
hold the position if needed. By this obstinate resistance, 
Sherman was mainly enabled to gather his reduced forces 
upon his second position, and if we consider how much, 
under the circumstances which attended the opening of 
this battle, depended on gaining time for better dispositions, 
we shall be impelled to the conclusion that probably no 
single regiment on that famous field rendered such impor- 
tant service at the opening of the battle as the Sevent}'- 
seventh. Its loss was heavy. 

This opinion as to the value of the stand made on the 
ridge is not confined to our community. Lieutenant Col- 
onel Compton, of Michigan, in command of the United 
States Sharp-shooters in that part of the fiehl, in his official 
report to General Grant declares that he is forced to the 
conclusion that the stand made by Hildebrand saved the 
right wing of the arm}' (Sherman's division), and thereby 
the army. 

Sherman's division was composed of troops all raw. The 
very arms they fought with had only been issued to them 
at Paducah, when about to ascend the river, a few weeks 
before. The troops were so debilitated and reduced by 
sickness from the use of water flowing from the swamps, 
that three hundred per regiment was about the average on 
the sick list the day before the battle. (The Seventy- 
seventh, for instance, three hundred; the Fiftj^-third, three 
hundred and twenty.) These were ordered back at the 
opening of the fight, and a very large proportion of the con- 
gregated mass in the rear were men of this class, instead of 
being runaways from the fighting. 

Next in order comes the first engagement of the Thirty- 
sixth. Most fortunate of our regiments, it had been thor- 
oughly drilled by the famous soldier who commanded it, 
Colonel (since General) George Crooke. 

In renewal of operations in Western Virginia in the 
spring of 1862, Crooke, with his brigade, penetrated the 
mountain region to Greenbrier, the wealthiest slaveholdiug 



12 ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

county in that quarter, and most allied socially with the 
ruling class east of the mountains, and occupied Lewisburg, 
the county-seat. To drive Crooke out, General Heth was 
sent with an infantrj' force double that of Crooke, and a 
battery. "Great coniidence," said a Richmond paper, " is 
felt in this young and talented otficer." The two opposing 
commanders had been classmates at West Point. In the 
gray twilight, one tine May morning, Captain Palmer, 
with Company A, sent out to reconnoiter, because of infor- 
mation received, found the enemy's forces forming on a 
ridge facing Lewisburg. As Palmer began skirmishing, 
they began shelling our camps, and the Thirty-sixth and 
Forty-fourth regiments formed under this fire and ad- 
vanced to the attack. In twenty minutes after the mus- 
ketry opened, the affair was decided, and Heth was de- 
feated, with the loss of about two hundred and fifty killed 
and wounded, three hundred prisoners, and all his guns. 
The most resistance oft'ered was on Heth's right, by the 
crack regiment of Western Virginia, the Twenty-second^ 
veterans of Scarey, Cross Lanes, and Carnifex, who had 
never been beaten. These were opposed to the Thirty- 
sixth, but the latter, compacted by its long winter's drill, 
never broke its ranks, and pressed its opponents steadily 
for half a mile, when they gave way altogether. 

The battle of Corinth, on the 4th of October, the same 
year, was the great and terrible day for the Sixty-third — 
when it performed its greatest feat of arms, and suffered 
its greatest loss. It was posted at the right of Battery 
Robinett, which Avas on the right of Corinth, facing north- 
west, and commanding the Chevalla road. By this road, 
Maury's division debouched and delivered its determined 
and even desperate assaults. Tliere were three of these as- 
saults, each prolonged. All of them had to be met by the 
Sixty-third, without being relieved, because its supporting 
regiment, the Thirty-ninth, which extended — being a much 
larger regiment — a considerable distance to the right rear 
also, was under imperative orders to hold the plank-road 
on its right at all hazards. The rebel columns, though 
torn in fragments by the fearful fire to which they were 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 13 

subjected over tliree hundred yards of open ground, re- 
peatedly penetrated in storrnino^ groups to the work, and 
the ditch was filled with their dead. Each time the left of 
the Sixty-third, at the appeal of the aftillery-men, charged 
round in the front of the works and beat them back. In 
several instances, the thing came to the bayonet. Officers, 
for the only time during the war, used their pistols. By 
the time of the third assault, the Sixty-third had to hold 
its line in squads, as there were but half enough men to 
fill the space. It was thereupon relieved on the left by the 
Eleventh Missouri. The loss of the Sixty-third was forty- 
eight per cent, killed and wounded, and but one line 
oflicer was left standing in the left wing at the close of the 
fight. Lieutenant Browning, of our county, commanding 
company G, Avas wounded three times before he would, 
leave the line. In front of the work were found, among 
the dead. General Rogers of Texas, one or two colonels, 
and also a rebel chaplain, who had died, bravely leading a 
company up to that point. For years afterward, instances 
were known of rebel soldiers who, when taken prisoners, 
inquired what regiment it was at Corinth which fought so, 
armed with white-stocked rifles. 

Let us now pass to the great operations and deadly fight- 
ing which marked the prolonged struggle for the strategic 
heart of the South— Chattanooga. The Thirty-sixth and 
Ninety-second, serving together in Turchin's brigade, par- 
ticipated in the famous charge, that which Thomas, in his 
official report, calls that "splendid advance" — the last 
stroke delivered by him in his battle on the left of the 
army, and the closing scene in the two days contest at 
Chickamauga. Under orders to withdraAV to Rossville, 
Thomas, on the 20th, at 5.30 p. m., having completed his 
arrangements, notified General Reynolds to commence the 
movement with his division. Of this division, Turchin's 
brigade was a part. On attempting the movement, it was 
found that the enemy had completely turned the left flank, 
and were in heavy force in the rear and on the Rossville 
road, and already moving up to attack. The first notifica- 
tion of the fact had in Turchin's brigade was grape-shot 



14 ADDEESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

and shells from batteries behind them. Thomas asked if 
that brigade could break through those lines, pointing to 
the heavy forces of the enemy. The answer was in the af- 
firmative. "Then, 'do it!" said Thomas. Immediately, 
the bri«:ade was faced to the rear. This brousrht the 
Thirty-sixth and Ninety-second in the first line. Turchin 
gave the preliminary directions: "Now, when I order 3'ou 
to charge, yon must charge, and you must keep charging ! " 
Bayonets were fixed, and at the word, the brigade, raising 
its peculiar yell, rushed at the enemy. But one volley was 
received from them, when, before they could reload, the 
front line, the Thirty-sixth and Ninety-second, was upon 
t^em, and had broken them. Thomas, who saw it, is our 
witness, in his oflicial words, that the rebel force was 
routed and driven in utter confusion beyond the left of his 
division next beyond the interposed rebel force. For a 
mile and a half, indeed, the charge continued with 
unabated fury — the rebel batteries, from three different 
points on the right, pouring grape-shot and shell into the 
column, in the endeavor to arrest its progress. A battery 
was taken and abandoned. Six hundred prisoners were 
taken, including a colonel and a number of other officers. 
About three hundred escaped in the clouds of dust and 
smoke that enveloped all. At length, having successfully 
charged and captured the Tenth Wisconsin battery, which 
had opened upon them as they approached the reserves, it 
was thus ascertained that their work was accomplished. 
Making a movement in force immediately into the path 
thus opened, Thomas was soon enabled to continue, and 
complete his retirement in safety. 

The Thirty-sixth was this day commanded by Lieutenant- 
Colonel (since General) H. F. Devol. Colonel Jones, of the 
Thirty-sixth, had been killed the day before. The Ninety- 
second was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Putnam, 
Colonel Fearing having been very severely wounded the 
day before. 

At the battle of Atlanta the Thirty-ninth was obliged to 
incur the greatest casualties of any engagement in its entire 
term of service, in order to hold its position and aid to save 



ADDEESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 15 

the train. The Sixteenth Corps, to which the Thirty-ninth 
belonged, was in rear of the Seventeenth Corps, supporting 
it, when suddenly it was learned that the enemy had in great 
force conipletely turned the left flank, and w'ere moving up 
to capture the trai>n from the rear. The corps immediately 
changed front to the rear, and moved rapidly to anticipate 
the enemy's attack. On reaching a ridge which commanded 
the field, the enemy, Hardee's Corps, w^as found to have 
already emerged from the woods, three hundred yards 
distant, and to be half way up the ridge. The brigade, to 
which the Thirty-ninth belonged, fell upon them with 
great determination — after a brief struggle drove them 
back into the woods — and then seized the ridge the better 
to hold them in check. Three charges were re[»nlsed. In 
one of these, the enemy attacked the brigade from the 
direction of its right front, gaining a fearfully destructive 
enfilading fire upon it. Then the greatest losses occurred. 
But the Thirty-ninth, with the Twenty-seventh on its right, 
obstinately resisting, replied with such a vigorous right- 
oblique fire that the enemy were again beaten back. The 
regiment, when Hardee retired, still held the position that 
it had assumed after his first repulse. The loss of the Thirty- 
ninth, in killed and wounded, amounted to one-third of 
those engaged. 

There was hardly one of the great operations of our 
Western armies in which Washington county was not rep- 
resented in the persons of its soldiers. 

The Thirty-sixth, under the able command of Colonel 
Devol, was in nearly all the more important campaigns in 
the Valley of Virginia, including that driving campaign in 
wdiich Sheridan ended all campaigning there. Buell's, 
Huntington's, and DcBeck's batteries shared the varied 
fortunes of the Potomac Army in the debateable land in 
front of and around Washington, in which that army ren- 
dered such important aid toward securing a successtul result 
of the war, by its jirotection of the National Capitol, and of 
the rich and populous States to the north of it, from several 
invasions, and ultimately by the capture of Kichmond. The 
Thirty-sixth also made one of its finest and most successful 



16 ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

charges at Antietam, where it dislodged a rebel force from 
beliiiid a stone-wall breast-work, which had been success- 
fully held against all attacks up to that time during the 
day. It was in this charge that Lieutenant Colonel Clarke, 
commanding the regiment, fell. Huntington's Battery ren- 
dered probably as great a piece of service as an}' battery 
during the war, by the desperate and succes^^ful stand it 
made, the first evening, to save the cemetery hill at Gettys- 
burg. At Chancellorville, enveloped in the disaster to the 
Eleventh Corps, it continued to pour grape and canister into 
the rebel columns till the enemy had reached it, when it 
saved its guns, clubbing the foremost of the enemy with 
the rammers, and fighting them with saber and revolver 
while limbering up. Buell's Battery was conspicuous for 
its services, in what General Longstreet calls in his report 
the battle of the Rappahannock, in 1862, when Pope was 
resisting on that river Lee's advance, and where its gallant 
and promising young commander was killed. DeBeck's 
Battery, under the command of Lieutenant Ilaskins, did 
important service on the left at the second Bull Run, where 
it handsomely engaged the famous Washington Artillery; 
and on various other occasions. The First and Seventh, 
and Ninth Ohio Cavalry, were with the "Western armies, 
and continually employed in the arduous labors which 
attended the long marches, mighty battles, and in the far- 
reaching raids within the enemy's lines, which distinguisjied 
this war, and which have never been equaled in military 
history for fatigue and adventurous daring. The First 
Ohio, from its superior skirmish drill atid firmness, was fre- 
quently selected to lead the advance, or cover the rear of 
the cavalry column, in the operations in the Chattanooga 
and Atlanta Campaigns. Much of its important service 
was performed under the command of that brave and 
astute officer. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Pattin of this 
county. The Seventh, at Nashville, on the right, charged 
over and captured field works and their guns. The Ninth 
formed a portion of Kilpatrick's command, in Sherman's 
conquering march through the Southeastern Rebel States. 
At Waynesboro, December 4th, in the general cavalry en- 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. . 17 

gagement,it made the second charge and broke tlie enemy's 



lines. 



West of the Mississippi, the Seventy-seventh was with 
Steele, in Arkansas. At Mark's Mills, when guarding a 
train under command of Col. McCormick, it was sur- 
rounded by a division of rebels, and, after a handsome re- 
sistance of two hours, was compelled to surrender. Two 
other regiments at the opposite extremity of the train had 
previously been compelled by the same force, some 7,000 
men, to accept terms. Afterward it aided in the capture 
of Mobile, and Avas engaged in the coast operations in 
Texas. The Thirty-ninth and Sixty-third were with Pope 
when he led the advance of the western armies in the 
operations against Corinth, resulting in the capture of that 
place. General (then Major) I^oyes, of the Thirty-ninth, 
was one of the two officers who first penetrated the town, 
and raised the national flag on the highest building they 
could find — the Seminary. These two regiments were in 
the subsequent operations for 0[iening the Mississippi, end- 
ing with the capture of Vicksburg. In the great re-enlist- 
ment the Thirty-ninth mustered five hundred and thirty- 
four men into the service as veteran volunteers, the greatest 
number of any Ohio regiment. The Thirty-sixth, Thirty- 
ninth, Sixty-third, and Ninty-second were in the Atlanta 
campaign. The Thirty-sixth came east after the capture 
of Atlanta, and joined Sheridan. The other three regi- 
ments remained with Sherman, and were in the great 
march to the sea and through the Carol! nas. The Thirty- 
sixth maintained to the end the soldierly bearing which 
Crooke's labors had impressed upon it at the beginning of 
its service, and it was in more than one instance pronounced, 
by experienced officers of the regular army, to be unequaled 
in this respect by any volunteer regiment they had ever 
known. 

The Second Virginia Cavalry rendered important serv- 
ices, mostly in arduous and hazardous marches and en- 
gagements in the mountain regions; much of the time 
under that gallant officer, Lieutenant-Colonel John C. Pax- 
ton, of this county. 



18 ' ADDKESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

Meantime, the One Hundred Day Men were sent for- 
ward to aid in closing the war, and our regiment, the One 
Hundred and Forty-eighth, was called upon to suft'er casu- 
alties that added to the list of those for whom this mon- 
ument is raised — six names by the explosion at City Point, 
and by the fearful railroad accident on its way there. 

As the Thirty-ninth had the fortune to be the first of the 
regiments in which we had soldiers which were under fire, 
so was it in the last battle in which any of them partici- 
pated — that at Goldsboro'. The division to which it be- 
longed was 80 completely enveloped bj^ several corps of the 
enemy that both flanks had to give back in horse-shoe 
fashion to make the fight. At the very head of this for- 
mation, where it stood when the fight opened, the Thirty- 
ninth still stood when the fight closed, the division being 
at length relieved by the advance of other forces. Next 
day, general orders providing for the movement of the 
troops stated that the Thirt^'-ninth Ohio would remain in 
camp " for distinguished gallantry in the action of yes- 
terday." Thus gloriously ended our battle record in the 
war for the Union. 

Such are the bare annals of the military organizations 
in which "Washington Count}' was represented, with a sin- 
gle page from the more particular record of each. The 
events to whose period they belong are fast shifting from 
the domain of experience into that of history, and we who 
were part of them already feel, not a few of us, that we 
have passed from the foreground into the middle distance 
of the panorama of life. Many of the younger portion of 
those who hear me saw the mighty storm of war sweep to 
and fro over the land, even as a pageant seen with the 
wondering eyes of childhood, nor knew the strain that 
tugged at the heart of every grown one of us while the life 
or death of the Union was fought for. The torpor of reac- 
tion from that strain so afl'ects us that we care too little now 
to dwell upon that on which once we could not think too 
much — the deeper meaning of the struggle. We are con- 
tent to see those who succeed us enter into and enjoy the 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 19 

rich competence of repose which the lahor and hurthen of 
war alone provided for them, and we neglect to imja-ess 
upon them the lesson which we— because we so long failed 

to read its naked and apparent text upon the southern sky 

had to learn in the darkness of trial, by the red illumina- 
tion of fire and blood. 

It is apt to be thus after great uprisings of the people, 
resulting in success. A generous forgetfulness, in putting 
out of sight the animosities of the contest, lets grow dull 
also the sense of what was contended for; and sometimes 
it has been known that those who strove in vain to over- 
turn principles which they iiated in the sanguinary but 
vigilant trial of war, proved able by meaner methods to 
undermine them in the subsequent security of peace. Let 
us then for once commune with you who have come to 
mingle with us newly upon the stage of action, and are 
soon to supersede us — always, believe me, to our content — 
and consider, before we separate, not merely what were the 
objects at stake, national unity and free society, but what 
was the innate and abiding impulse which inspired and 
directed the purpose of those who fought tor them. 

We should have done injustice to the manhood of these 
dead, if we had neglected to recall this day their deeds as 
soldiers. We shall do more than injustice — we shall dese- 
crate their memory as citizens who gave their lives for the 
common weal— if we fail on this occasion to appreciate the 
animating spirit on our side, as distinguished from the pas- 
sions and purposes which actuated and inflamed those on 
that side against which we strove, and over which, under 
God, we prevailed. 

That animating spirit, or principle was the same which 
has reconciled liberty and order, freedom and authority, in 
the English race, until it has become a transmitted political 
instinct, a heredity, the reconcilation of progress and con- 
servatism, laying hold of customs or principles of law that 
have been found to work well, and making them precedents 
to be followed, yet hesitating not to do away with prece- 
dent when it has come to be mere obstruction or degen- 
erated into abuse. We feel the motions of such a political 



20 ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

judgment in us, and we can discern it in the instance, 
though we may not fully describe its character or tell the 
springs from which its habits took their rise. It is as 
subtle in its essence and diflicnlt of definition as the ma- 
terial bond which keeps the universe in balance. It is as 
apparent and certain in its operation as the motions of the 
planets or the far and slow procession of the stars. It took, 
in England, a monarchy and aristocracy, and created with 
their aid greater individual freedom than had ever been 
known under the forms of consolidated government before. 
It took in America, a democratic republic, and proved it 
to have greater power to put down internal dissension than 
any despotism the world had ever seen. It is the spirit 
that preserves free states by intelligent, voluntarj', and 
ready obedience to law — that loves party and abhors fac- 
tion — that accepts facts and avoids extremes. It spoke in 
Douglas, when the South demanded of him, seeking 
Southern votes, whether he would su[)port Lincoln, if 
elected, in enforcing law, and he answered that he would. 
It controlled the Republican party in the winter before the 
war, wben it accepted the principle of pojiular sovereignty 
in its legislation for the Territories, thereby compacting 
the Union sentiment of the North. It inspired Alexander 
H. Stephens, when, in his speech against rebellion, as the 
rebellion was breaking out, he demanded that his people 
should consider, not what had been thought, but what had 
been done against them by the l^orth. It induced Lincoln 
to withhold the emancipation proclamation so long as it 
might be a hasty disruption of the sanctions of law. It im- 
pelled him to launch its thunders when the issue had be- 
come hopelessly manifest of Slavery and Secession against 
Liberty and Union. Sometimes, by a noble reaction, it ap- 
pears in those who long had seemed to have forgotten its 
dictates. It influenced Lee to surrender, because warfare 
conducted after armies could nowhere keep tlic field, would 
destroy society. It spoke in Vallandighani, when he coun- 
seled his followers to accept the results of the war in good 
faith, and thus relax the tendency to centralization. Above 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 21 

all, while not afraid to take revolution as the last resort, 
it never takes it as the first. 

Why was it that the i^orth was all astonished tliat the 
people of the South, when lawfully defeated in a lawful 
election, and before any legislation had against them, took 
up arms? It was because it would not, under any such 
circumstances, have done so itself. It was familiar with 
the fact, that in Spanish-American populations, often when 
a minority finds itself defeated at the polls, it issues a pro- 
nnnciamento and institutes bloody rebellion. It did not 
expect this of men bred in the same traditions as itself. 

There was then a difference of spirit, a difi"erence in the 
principle of action, that underlay the contest from which, 
ten years ago, we emerged victorious on the particular 
issues then presented. And this difierence is too deep and 
great to be passed over as mere party variance in politics. 
A Mexican might sincerely believe that it could so be re- 
garded; an American must believe it if at all — with a 
doubt! It is true that the difierence grew out of a peculiar 
institution, and that following the fate of that institution 
it may pa^s away. It is equally true that the spirit which 
that institution bred may survive it, and on other issues 
work mischief in the land again. \¥hether it will do so 
or not depends on ourselves. When men are not true to 
themselves, others will not be true to them. When men 
are not well convinced themselves, they will not convince 
others. If we accept it practically that there is no differ- 
ence between the spirit of English law and the spirit of 
Mexican anarchy, not only shall we fail to make those with 
whom we fought respect the convictions for which we 
fought, but we shall even become in time as they themselves. 

Do not think I talk party politics. The men who 
fought this war for us, to whatever party they may now 
belong, are above criticism as to their motives in public 
afiairs, and their opinions are entitled to respect. I speak 
only of that on which, then, we all agreed, and ask that by 
the memory of these dead we may never give it up. Let 
us, to whatever party we belong, never give up the senti- 
ment and the duty that united us in the war. The rebellion 



22 ADDRESS OF GENERAL SMITH. 

was a crime against free government. If that conviction is 
given up by those who held it, the days of our government 
are numbered. And so long as any considerable portion 
of our people refuse to accept that conviction, so long is our 
government in danger. 

Let us remember, then, we who were on the stage of 
action in the great contest, and you our inheritors, remem- 
ber, for what these dead fought, for what they died. And 
to all, and to future generations, let the appeal rise from 
tlie graves of those to whom we now dedicate this monu- 
ment : "We, to tell of whom this stone was raised, ask of 
those who come after us that they see to it that we did not 
die in vain." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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